"It's All About Love." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church, on Good News Sunday.

"It's All About Love"

1 John 4:7-21; Mark 12:28-34

Today is officially Good News Sunday at Littlefield!

            Have you heard some good news today?  In the scripture lessons or in the songs?  [I hope so.  That takes a bit of the pressure off me. Though I’ll do my best.]

            I do believe we have good news to share-- important and life-changing good news.  Sometimes I think I risk sounding like a “broken record.”   Some of you have heard me say this over and over again, in various ways.   But the more I’ve studied the scriptures over the years and looked for the main themes and the big picture, the more I’ve become convinced that our Christian faith is really all about love. 

            God loves us.  We are—all of us-- God’s beloved children.  Our faith is about responding to God’s love for us and for all God’s children by loving God   and loving all the people God loves. 

            The Hebrew Scriptures include a lot of stories and verses that a lot of us find puzzling and troubling.  Yet one of the major themes is of God’s steadfast loving-kindness.

            One of my teachers at Princeton Seminary did her doctoral dissertation on the recurring theme of “hesed”, which is a Hebrew word that can be translated as “mercy,” or “steadfast loving-kindness.”  

            One of the other prominent themes in the Old Testament is how God keeps sending prophets to call people back to living in right relationship with God and neighbor…  and how those right relationships are characterized by love and justice and mercy.

             The gospel message in the New Testament proclaims in various ways how Jesus came to live among us, full of grace and truth, to embody God’s love for us, and to show us how to live in the way of love.   Jesus preached about the “kingdom of God” or the “reign of God” and how we are called to live into it.      

            When people asked Jesus what the most important commandment is, he said what’s most important is two-fold:  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus made it clear that your neighbor is anybody we encounter, anybody God puts in our path—even people who are different…  people we might even see as enemies. 

            In his last talk with his disciples, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  People will know you are my followers by the way you love one another.”[1]

            Jesus made it very clear that it’s all about love.  So, I keep wondering how so many people who call themselves “Christians” could be so confused about this.  

            So many people in our society fear and mistrust those who are different:  Muslims…  people whose skin is a different color…  immigrants… refugees.   

            There are so many people in our nation who are hungry or food insecure or lack the basic things they need to live a life of dignity. The gap between the very rich and the poor keeps widening.

            This week, in particular, there has been a national conversation on social media and elsewhere about sexual assault.  Women all around the country have been sharing their stories about being assaulted, and many others have been talking about being “triggered” by recent events and re-experiencing their assaults.

            Our nation is divided by partisan politics, and respect and trust and basic civility seem to be in very short supply. In recent weeks, there have been death threats against Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Senator Flake. 

            In the midst of all this brokenness and fear and injustice, how are we-- as people of faith-- called to live?

           

            “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God.  Everyone who loves is born of God    and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God-- for God is love.   Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.    No one has ever seen God.  If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is made complete in us.”[2]

            I hear the scriptures saying that loving one another is a spiritual practice.  As we work at loving one another—God is living in us and working in us and perfecting love in us.

            “There is no fear in love.  But perfect love casts out fear.  Whoever fears has not reached maturity in love.”

            We love because God first loved us.   If we say, “I love God” but hate our brother or sister, we’re lying about loving God.   As we heard in First John, “those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen—cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

            Fear divides us.  It leads to violence and destruction.   Hatred and fear are toxic.  They harm us-- as persons and as a society.

            But there is a way out.  It is not the way of fear, and hate and violence.  It is the way of love. 
            In Dr. Martin Luther King’s words: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”[3]
            If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we have a long way to go to drive hatred and fear out of our lives and out of our society.  Living in the way of love is not easy.  Living in the way of love is too hard to do on our own power alone.
            And so… we need to be in prayer-- together.   We need to open our lives to God’s call in our lives, as we live further into God’s dream for the world—the world that God so loves.   
            We need each other.  The Greek word ekklesia which we translate as “church” literally means an “assembly,” or those who are gathered together.   We need to come together as a community of faith-- not for the sake of coming to a place called church-- but for the sake of coming together as part of the Body of Christ… for the sake of gathering as disciples who need to learn and practice living in the way of love.  
            We need to love one another and encourage one another.  We need to love one another into becoming more and more the beloved children of God we were created to be.   We need to love one another into becoming the beloved community. 
            God isn’t finished with any of us yet.  Our love isn’t yet perfect, and it hasn’t yet cast out all our fears.   But God is still working in and among and through us, through the power of the Holy Spirit-- leading and empowering us to become more patient and kind and generous… and helping us to become less envious or controlling… less irritable or resentful.  
            God is still working in us, guiding us further into the truth, re-forming us, teaching us what it means to go out and be the church in the world, in this time and place.

            The good news is that as we grow more and more into God’s way of love, God’s love will cast out our fears.

            In a broken and fearful world, we can trust in the Holy Spirit to give us courage to pray without ceasing.[4]   As we work with others for justice, freedom and peace, our lives will be transformed, and together we can change the world.        

            Thanks be to God!

            Amen.

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

September 30, 2018

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[1] John 13:31-35

[2] 1 John 4:7-12

[3] Quoted from Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (1963).  I have read that he first said it in a sermon around 1957.

[4] This is an allusion to the “Brief Statement of Faith of the Presbyterian Church (USA)”, 1990.

"What Is to Prevent?" A Sermon from Littleield Presbyterian Church.

"What Is to Prevent?"

Acts 8:26-39

In the beginning of the book of Acts, we hear that Jesus has promised that the apostles would be baptized with the Holy Spirit and commissioned them to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. 

Now, in chapter 8, we hear that an angel of the Lord comes to Philip and tells him to go to the road to Gaza.  So, Philip is traveling down the road from Jerusalem to Gaza—a wilderness road—when he encounters an Ethiopian riding in a chariot. 

Luke tells us quite a lot about both of these men.  Philip is one of seven Greek-speaking Christians appointed by the Twelve to tend to the needs of others, especially widows, in the Greek-speaking part of the Christian community.  He is known as Philip the Evangelist, who eventually settled in Caesarea.[1]

Embedded in this story are a number of interesting details.  We’re told that the Ethiopian—a black African—was the treasurer of “The Candace,” the official title of the queen mother and real head of government in Ethiopia.[2] 

Since he’s traveling in a chariot, we know he’s a person of status.   That he possesses a scroll of the prophet Isaiah shows that he is wealthy, because scrolls were very expensive. 

Luke tells us that the Ethiopian is a eunuch, which was not unusual for someone in that time and culture whose life was devoted to serving in the queen’s court.  He had probably been castrated, likely as a child, so that he would be considered trustworthy around all the women in the queen’s court. It must have been important to Luke that this man was a eunuch, because he mentions it five times.

This Ethiopian man was likely a “God-worshiper” returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  God-worshipers, or God-fearers, were Gentiles who accepted the theological and ethical teachings of Judaism and worshiped with Jews in the synagogue without becoming full converts.   

Philip hears the Ethiopian reading aloud from the book of Isaiah and asks him if he understands what he’s reading.  The Ethiopian says, “How can I, unless someone guides me?”  Then he invites Philip to get into the chariot and ride with him.  

The passage he’s reading is one of what we may recognize as one of the “Suffering Servant” songs:

"Like a lamb led to slaughter, in humiliation justice was denied him and he was cut off from the land of the living, cut off from all progeny." 

The Ethiopian eunuch may have had his experience of rejection in mind as he was reading Isaiah: “In his humiliation, justice was denied him.”   No matter how much this man may have longed to be a full member of the Jewish community, the religious rules would have excluded him because of his physical condition.[3] If Deuteronomy 23 was being enforced in a rigid manor, he would not have been allowed in the Temple to worship—not even in the Court of the Gentiles, which was an outer court.[4] 

Here is someone else who has been denied a full life, condemned to have no generations to follow and remember him. And so, the eunuch is curious. Who is this being described in Isaiah? What has he done? What is going to happen to him? Of course, what he probably really wants to know is what is going to happen to him.  It’s as if the scripture has become a mirror, and he finds himself in it.

Now, before Philip was sent down this wilderness road, he has been preaching “the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ” in Samaria, and as a result, many Samaritans “were baptized, both men and women.”  By preaching in Samaria, Philip has broken through two important barriers:  religion and ethnicity.  He is convinced that God loves even the Samaritans, and that they are welcome to join this new inclusive Jewish sect—the community of the Messiah. 

Even though Jesus had commissioned his followers to be his witnesses in Samaria,[5] this breakthrough had apparently raised eyebrows among the Jewish-Christian leaders in Jerusalem.  Can you imagine them saying, “But we’ve never done that before!  We’ve always believed that the Samaritans were heretics… “

The enforcers of the religious boundaries sent Peter and John to Samaria to look into the matter of including the Samaritans, and they prayed for them, and they received the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Peter and John preached the gospel to many villages of Samaritans on their way back to Jerusalem.

The Spirit was on the move!  So, I think there are three main characters in this story.  The Spirit of God brought Philip to the eunuch, so that he can interpret the scripture to him.  He tells him that the suffering servant as described by Isaiah has been fully embodied in the life and ministry of Jesus… and that Jesus’ death and resurrection has led to new life for all people.

Can you imagine how the eunuch would have responded to that news?  All people? Does Philip really mean that?  New life for all people?

As they’re traveling along that wilderness road, they come to some water. The eunuch impulsively jumps up and with great excitement, proclaims, "Look, here is water!  What is to prevent me from being baptized?"

What is to prevent him from being baptized?  A lot of people would want to say, “God says no.   God says you’re not even allowed in the Temple, because you’re a eunuch.  We’ve got a couple of Bible verses we can quote to prove it.  Like in Deuteronomy chapter 23.   It’s what we’ve always believed.  God says “no.”

But that isn’t what happened.  An angel of the Lord had sent Philip to encounter this Ethiopian eunuch.  This God-fearing eunuch who was studying the prophet Isaiah invites Philip to ride with him, to lead him in Bible study. 

I wonder if, during the course of their Bible study in the chariot, Philip and the eunuch read the next few chapters in the scroll of Isaiah.  I wonder if they got to chapter 56, where Isaiah proclaims:

“Thus says the LORD:  maintain justice, and do what is right,

for soon my salvation will come,

and my deliverance will be revealed….

Do not let the foreigner joined to the LORD say,

“The LORD will surely separate me from his people”;

... and do not let the eunuch say,

   "I am just a dry tree."

   For thus says the Lord:

   To eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,

   who choose the things that please me

   and hold fast my covenant,

   I will give in my house and within my walls,

   a monument and a name

   better than sons or daughters;

   I will give them an everlasting name

   that shall not be cut off. “[6]

Over the years, some scholars have wondered how Isaiah could have said such a thing.  Surely, he knew the holiness code as written in Deuteronomy.  A eunuch was excluded from the assembly of the LORD.[7]  Why would Isaiah have said this after the exile, when the very survival of the remnant of the people of Israel was at stake?  This was a time when having children would have been a priority… and when purity and boundaries seemed critically important.  And yet, in just such a time, Isaiah wrote that foreigners and eunuchs would be welcome in the household of God.

Could it be that the Spirit of God was hovering over the text and over the prophet, bringing forth a new word to overturn the word of exclusion?  

The Spirit of God has been on the move.  Surely it was no coincidence that the story in Acts 8 of an Ethiopian eunuch brings together the two categories of Isaiah 56 together in this one person. Philip is continuing the work the risen Jesus began on the Emmaus road, opening and interpreting the scriptures.

Through his storytelling and his actions, through his relationships with people, Jesus proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom of God—the gospel of love.

When people asked Jesus what the most important commandment was, Jesus said: “Love God with your whole being.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  On this hangs the whole of the Law.” 

Jesus’ teaching and ministry were all about love and compassion and healing.  He reached out to people on the margins of society—people the good religious people of his day thought of as sinners and outcasts.

The eunuch listens to Philip as he shares the good news of Jesus.  And then with longing and excitement, he asks:  What is to prevent me from becoming part of this living, welcoming Body of Christ?

What does Philip do?   He sets aside the narrow confines of purity laws and exclusion… and throws open the wide doors of God’s love and mercy.  He embraces the spirit of the law, and baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch. 

This is gospel in action.  That’s what happens when we really study the Bible.  It’s transformative. It changes our minds. It changes our lives. And, like the Ethiopian eunuch, it sends us out rejoicing.

That’s a very different thing from when people pick a verse or two or three to support what they already “know” and say, “No. God says “no.”

            He went on his way rejoicing!   Tradition tells us that the Ethiopian eunuch was the first one to take the gospel to Ethiopia, and that makes sense to me.  He went on his way rejoicing—so full of joy and gratitude that he would have wanted to share the good news. The eunuch goes on his way rejoicing, for he has become a full member of the household of faith. 

Then the Spirit sends Philip on to share the good news in new places.  The Spirit is on the move.

There is good news for us and for all God’s people today.  God continues to come to us and to work in the lives of women and men who abide in Christ.   By that same Spirit, God unites us to Christ in the waters of baptism. 

 God gives us grace to abide in Christ, so that we can rejoice and grow in grace and produce the fruit of God’s reign in our lives.   We are sent forth to share the amazing wideness of God’s love…  to make everyone feel welcome in the heart of God.

This is the Good News of the Gospel. 

Thanks be to God!

  

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

April 29, 2018

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[1] Acts 21:8-9.

[2] Paul W. Walaskay, Acts  (Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), p. 86.

[3] Walaskay, p. 86.

[4] Deuteronomy 23

[5] Acts 1:8

[6] Isaiah 56:3-5

[7] Deuteronomy 23:1.

 

"The Call." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Mark 9:3-37 on a baptism Sunday.

“The Call”

Mark 9:30-37

            

Last week as I was driving somewhere I heard part of an interview on NPR about the history of fraternal organizations and lodges  During the interview, someone said that people don’t join groups as much as they used to.  He mentioned Robert Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, which was published in 2000—about the time social scientists started talking more about a trend of declining in-person social relationships and community,  which became more of a trend from around 1950 on.[1]  

            I’d read Bowling Alone when it was first published.  The title of the book came from a trend in bowling:  the number of people who bowled had increased between 1970 and 1990, but the number of people who bowled in leagues had decreased significantly.  If people bowl alone, they don’t participate in social interaction and civic discussions that might occur in a league environment.

            I think the trends Putnam and others were identifying fifteen years ago are even more evident today, in the aggregate loss in membership and number of volunteers in Parent-Teacher Associations, Women’s Clubs, any number of civic organizations, and the church.  Our leisure time has become much more individualized, via television and internet. 

                       

            We live in a culture in which individualism and consumerism are prominent values.   As I was looking through my notes on this scripture passage, I came across a commentary Kenneth Woodward wrote in Newsweek some time ago, in which he said that one of the most common theological questions asked in our society is “What do I want?” [2]

            In that article, Woodward described a kind of  “mix-em, match-em, salad-bar spirituality."

            You know how salad bars work.  You take what you want:  the mixed greens, the cherry tomatoes, the potato salad.  You leave behind what you don't want:  the sprouts, the pickled beets, the broccoli and cauliflower.  Woodward says a lot of people today assemble their spiritual lives in much the same way.  He cites a contemporary seeker who declares, "Instead of me fitting a religion, I found a religion to fit me." 

            "What do I want?"  is the question we might ask standing in the door of an open refrigerator.  Have you ever done that?  I feel this strange, vague hunger inside me.  I know I want something. 

            "What do I want?" is the question we ask standing in the shopping mall, or the car lot--  hoping something we buy might make us feel whole or happy...  or just better.

            "What do I want?"   When that becomes the only question—or the main question--  religious faith is no longer seen as the center of life and an integrating force holding our lives together--  but rather as just one more thing added into the life we try to put together for ourselves… or something to take or leave, depending on what I want. 

            The thought that religious faith is only about getting what we want can be pretty attractive...  seductive.

            By contrast, Jesus' words in today’s gospel lesson are anything but pretty, when he talks about how he will have to suffer…be rejected…and die.

            Though the way of Jesus sounds strange--  there is also something strangely appealing about it.  Jesus speaks so confidently about the new life he offers:  life so abundant that if you give it away you only find more of it.  Life so precious that it can't be bought--  but only received as a gift.  The gospel is paradoxical and counter-cultural.

            The popular culture gives us strong messages about who we are and what we’re worth and what life means.  We’re bombarded by commercials on T.V. that tell us that we’ll be happy if we use the right products to keep up appearances…if we have the right look for ourselves and our homes.  Even young children are targeted by advertisers who want to sell toys and junk food.

            The way of consumerism invites us to grasp and grab...  and work and toil, never satisfied, always wanting more....  always trying to fill some deep emptiness which can't be filled with anything less than God.

            When we have ears to hear, we’re invited to choose the way that leads to life and abundance.  As Christians, we’re challenged by our faith to repent—to re-think, to open ourselves to be transformed by the good news of the gospel.            

            One of the great joys of the Christian life is when parents present their children for baptism.  This is their public declaration that they want their child to be a part of the church and to have a ministry in it—even before the child is old enough to be fully aware of all the love that surrounds her or him. 

            For some of us, our children can be the reason we begin to participate more faithfully in the life of Christ.  In my own life, I’d been turned off by some experiences in the church I grew up in, and so I left the church when I went away to college.  Part of what drew me back into the church some years later was a feeling that I wanted my son to be nurtured in a church family.

            Because of my own experience, I identify with the story of a woman named Karin in Nick Taylor’s book Ordinary Miracles: Life in a Small Church.[3]   Karin had been baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church, and defected as a teen to the Methodists, who had a better youth group.  Then, after high school, she fell away from church.  “I graduated from nursing school…and went to work.   There was no time for God in my life.   But our God is a patient God,” she wrote.

            Soon she was living her version of the American dream.  She had a husband who loved her and whom she loved, a house in the suburbs, a station wagon in the driveway, two kids, the dog, the whole nine yards.  The material things were all there.  But something was missing.

            Karin realized she was looking for God in her life when she brought her children to church and made baptismal promises for them.  She said, “God was calling me back, and I finally heard….”

            At St. Mary’s, she found a loving community of people trying to live as Jesus taught.  The congregation welcomed her and her husband, and later her husband decided he wanted to live his life as a follower of Jesus.

            Karin made a discovery about the essence of her spiritual journey as she was making a trip she’d been dreading, when she delivered her first baby into a new life away at college.  Her daughter had stayed up most of the night at a farewell party, and she was sleeping in the seat next to her.  Karin wrote, “I had so many things to say to her.  There’s a saying that your children aren’t yours to keep, but God loans them to you for a while.  It was time for me to step to the sidelines.

            Karin reflected:  “God has blessed [us] with our daughters.  That morning on the long drive, I thought about the past eighteen years and how different my life has become.  Would I be the same person I am, if not for this sleeping young woman next to me?   Again, I realized God had put Susan and her sisters into my life for a reason.  In making sure they had a religious education, my own knowledge and love of God has been deepened immeasurably.  The void I felt so long ago has been filled.”

            When parents bring their children for baptism and promise to raise them in the faith, it can be a new beginning for the parents—and for all of us-- as well.

            Baptism is central to our identity as Christians.    As we live into our baptism, we learn who we are and whose we are.  We are nurtured to see ourselves as beloved children of God, and that can make all the difference!

            Baptism is a life-changing, transforming event in our lives.  The baptismal font stands at the front of sanctuary as we worship God every Sunday, reminding us that we’ve been initiated into this congregation, as well as into the universal church of Jesus Christ.  It reminds us that we’re an important part of the Body of Christ—marked and identified as a disciple of Christ.  The church is where we grow in faith and learn over a lifetime what it means to follow Jesus Christ. 

            In our Presbyterian and Reformed tradition, our understanding of baptism emphasizes God’s initiative.  God reaches out graciously to us, and offers us the gift of life in the kingdom as a free gift.  We respond by dedicating our lives to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and committing ourselves to follow him.  Baptism is the beginning of our life in the church…a first step in a journey that takes a lifetime.

            When we baptize children, we promise to teach them who they are in the light of God’s truth.  We promise to teach them what makes them different as part of a holy people…a royal priesthood…consecrated to God’s service.  We’re called to tell the good news of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ…and to show in our lives how God has saved us by calling us out of darkness into God’s marvelous light.[4]

            When parents present their child for baptism, they promise to live the Christian faith themselves, and to teach that faith to their children, by word and example.  When we baptize a child, the whole congregation makes promises to nurture that child in a variety of ways, and to teach them the faith.  To grow up in the faith, we and our children need to worship and learn together—in our families, and in the faith community which is the church. 

            Each time we baptize a new Christian, we’re inviting that person on a journey that will take a lifetime.  Today, we’re inviting Leah to be part of the great adventure we call church.

            What God will make of Leah’s life, or where God will lead her, we don’t know.

            But what we do know…what we can say with certainty-- because we have God’s promise—is that God is with us every step of the way.

            May God bless Leah and her family…and all of us on our adventure as we discern our call further into the life God is offering us!

            Amen!

            

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

October 11, 2015

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[1] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000).

[2] Kenneth L. Woodward and others, “A Time to Seek,” Newsweek (Dec. 17, 1990), page 50.

[3] Nick Taylor, Ordinary Miracles: Life in a Small Church (1993).

[4] 1 Peter 2:9

          

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[1] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000).

[2] Kenneth L. Woodward and others, “A Time to Seek,” Newsweek (Dec. 17, 1990), page 50.

[3] Nick Taylor, Ordinary Miracles: Life in a Small Church (1993).

"It's All About Love." A sermon preached at Littlefield Presbyterian Church for Good News Sunday, on Sept. 27, 2015.

"It's All About Love"

Good News Sunday Sermon

Isaiah 43:1-7; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:9-17

         Today is officially Good News Sunday at Littlefield!   We told people that—if they brought someone to worship today—we promise that they would hear some good news! 

            I hope that people were paying attention to the scripture passages today as they were being read.   Have you heard some good news?  I hope so.  That takes a bit of the pressure off me, now.  Though I’ll do my best.

            I do believe we have good news to share--  important and life-changing good news.  Sometimes I think I risk sounding like a “broken record.”   Some of you have heard me say this over and over again, in various ways.   But the more I’ve studied the scriptures over the years and looked for the main themes and the big picture, the more I’ve become convinced that our Christian faith is really all about love. 

            God loves us.  We are—all of us-- God’s beloved children.  Our faith is about responding to God’s love for us and for all God’s children by loving God   and loving all the people God loves. 

            The Old Testament includes a lot of stories and verses that a lot of us find puzzling and troubling.  Yet one of the major themes in the Old Testament is of God’s steadfast mercy.  One of my Old Testament teachers at seminary did her doctoral dissertation on the recurring theme of “hesed”,  which is a Hebrew word that can be translated as “mercy,” or “steadfast loving-kindness.”   One of the other prominent themes in the Old Testament is how God keeps sending prophets to call people back to living in right relationship with God and neighbor…  and how those right relationships are characterized by love and justice and mercy.

             The gospel message in the New Testament proclaims in various ways how Jesus came to live among us, full of grace and truth, to embody God’s love for us, and to show us how to live in the way of love.   Jesus preached about the “kingdom of God” or the “reign of God” and how we are called to live into it.       

            When people asked Jesus what the most important commandment is, he said what’s most important is two-fold:  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus made it clear that your neighbor is anybody we encounter—even people who are different…  people we might even see as enemies. 

            In his last talk with his disciples, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  People will know you are my followers by the way you love one another.”[1]

            In the gospel lesson we heard today, Jesus tells his followers, “If you keep my commandments  [the commandments to love God and love the neighbor] we will abide in his love.”   Jesus tells his disciples that he has said these things so that we may have his joy, and that our joy may be complete.

            Jesus made it very clear that it’s all about love.  So I keep wondering how so many people who call them selves Christians could be so confused about this.   

            We live in such a broken and fearful world.   Our government spends vast amounts of resources fighting terrorism.  Alarm systems to protect homes, businesses, and even churches are commonplace.  

            We live in a nation plagued by gun violence.  Every year in the United States,  an average of more than 100,000 people are shot.   That’s an average of 289 people shot every day, and   eighty-six of them die.   Precious lives, of beloved children of God—lost. 

            So many people in our society fear and mistrust those who are different:  Muslims…  people whose skin is a different color…  immigrants.     

            There are too many people in our nation who are hungry or food insecure or lack the basic things they need to live a life of dignity.

            In the midst of all this brokenness and fear and injustice, how are we-- as people of faith-- called to live?

           

            “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God.  Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God--  for God is love.   Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.    No one has ever seen God.  If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.”

            I hear the scriptures saying that loving one another is a spiritual practice, and that-- as we work at loving one another—God is living in us and working in us and perfecting love in us….

            “There is no fear in love.  But perfect love casts out fear.  Whoever fears has not reached maturity in love.”

            We love because God first loved us.   If we say, “I love God” but hate our brother or sister, we’re lying about loving God.   As we heard in First John,  “those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen—cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

            Fear divides us.  It leads to violence and destruction.   Hatred and fear are toxic.  They harm us as persons and as a society.

            But there is a way out.  It is not the way of fear, and hate and violence; it is the way of love.  In Dr. Martin Luther King’s words:  “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
            If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we have a long way to go to drive hatred and fear out of our lives and out of our society.  Living in the way of love is not easy.  Living in the way of love is too hard to do on our own power alone.
            And so… we need to be in prayer.   We need to open our lives to God’s call in our lives, as we live further into God’s dream for the world—the world that God so loves.   
            We need each other.  The Greek word ekklesia which we translate as “church” literally means an “assembly,” or those who are gathered together.  We need to come together as a community of faith--  not for the sake of coming to a place called church--  but for the sake of coming together as part of the Body of Christ… for the sake of gathering as disciples who need to learn and practice living in the way of love.   We need to love one another and encourage one another.  We need to love one another into becoming more and more the beloved children of God we were created to be.   We need to love one another into becoming the beloved community. 
            God isn’t finished with any of us yet.  Our love isn’t yet perfect, and it hasn’t yet cast out all our fears.   But God is still working in and among and through us,  through the power of the Holy Spirit-- leading and empowering us to become more patient and kind and generous… and helping us to become less envious or controlling… less irritable or resentful. 
            God is still working in us, guiding us further into the truth, re-forming us, teaching us what it means to go out and be the church out in the world, in this time.

            The good news is that as we grow more and more into God’s way of love, God’s love will cast out our fears.

            In a broken and fearful world, 1we can trust in the Holy Spirit to give us courage to pray without ceasing.[2]   As we work with others for justice, freedom and peace, our lives will be transformed, and together we can change the world.             

           

            So be it!

            Amen.

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan]

September 27, 2015

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[1] John 13:31-35

[2] This is an allusion to the Brief Statement of Faith of the Presbyterian Church (USA), 1990.